NEW YORK—An unprecedented trove of material relating to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most famous and influential name in America’s storied Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s realized more than $130,000 on Oct. 17 at Heritage Auctions in New York as part of the company’s Historical Manuscripts event.

One of the highlights of the auction, what was thought to be a contemporary copy of the last page of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech sent to Maude Ballou (not the actual page King read from when he made the speech), was withdrawn by the house pending further research. The page is absolutely authentic to the archive and Dr. King, but further research is being undertaken to date it definitively to King’s most famous speech.

“This was simply an unprecedented auction of amazing, evocative material that provides a ground-level perspective of the civil rights struggle,” said Sandra Palomino, Director of Historical Manuscripts at Heritage Auctions. “There was worldwide interest in the material and the emotional response to it was huge.”

Heritage Auctions is the largest auction house founded in the United States and the world’s third largest, with annual sales of more than $800+million, and 800,000+ online bidder members. For more information about Heritage Auctions, and to join and receive access to a complete record of prices realized, with full-color, enlargeable photos of each lot, please visit HA.com

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